‘Game of Thrones': Traumatizing the Characters – and the Audience, Too

Lost kingdoms and that gruesome wedding

“This season we hoped to give the feeling of coming out of a traumatic event. Families were lost, kingdoms burned, alliances were broken,” says Daniel Minahan, director of episode “Valar Dohaeris,” one of weveral episodes of HBO’s fantasy drama to get Creative Arts noms.

Steve Kullback, lead vfx producer, nommed for that episode, says, “(For Daenerys and her dragons travelling by boat), we started with a ship that’s built in a parking lot in Northern Ireland. A fast approach, using a technocrane on tracks, raced toward the ship and found Dany and Jorah on deck in front of a green screen. The water needed to be CG, but the bow wake was a real element that we shot using a black-hulled ship in Croatia.”

Paul Engelen, department head makeup artist, nommed for “Kissed by Fire” and “Valar Dohaeris,” says, “Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) had to have scars throughout the series, and Davos (Liam Cunningham) had extensive sunburn for his initial scenes. Nipple amputations, whip lacerations, cranial deformities are all part of our arsenal!”

Gemma Jackson, production designer, nommed for “Valar Dohaeris” and “Kissed by Fire” recalls “Episode 1 specifically opened in the freezing North and we were lucky enough to have a huge snowstorm, which added to the power of the opening scenes. Back in Belfast I designed and built a whole new composite set for King’s Landing, which I love. Much more space within which to tell stories.”

Oral Ottey, picture editor, nommed for “The Rains of Castamere” says of the gruesome “Red Wedding” episode: “It was a case of finding the best pieces from this puzzle, putting it together and giving it breath and a flow. I wanted to drag people in and have them glued to the screen.” David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, executive producers add: “We were lucky to have Oral Ottey cutting for us. Oral has such a keen sense of what matters and what doesn’t, and for the rhythm of the scene.”

Euro writers are like watching someone throw LEFTY in baseball and US writers seem to be all RIGHTIES. Euro writers will surprise you when you think you have gotten their story line down. But US writers will stay to the obvious end of a script predictable and/or really they don’t care, even the Black writers will follow the same formula. They box themselves into the storyline and give you a either OR scenario. Game of Thrones is the EURO version of SORPANOS hit series, The only thing better than both and still they never got credit was the WIRE!!! But lets not backwards.